


too young to take over, too old to ignore

by swimthewholeriogrande



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Fear, Growing Up, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:25:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Racetrack is sick of feeling helpless, and in becoming a man makes a mistake.





	too young to take over, too old to ignore

**Author's Note:**

> lil sprace for the soul  
> title from hello 12, hello 13, hello love from a chorus line!

It was spitting rain. A boy - you could call him a man based just off of the exhaustion in his face, his insides and clothes too big for his body - was standing in the middle of the street, hazy yellow from the gas lamps illuminating his face. Everything about his features was elegant and pale and everything behind them, deep in Race's mind, was icing over with resolve. 

"You got it?"

The voice came from behind him and Race wordlessly extended his palm behind his back, two dollars sitting steady and fast on his fingers; he had been told not to look. The hard-earned dollars were replaced by cold steel that he instinctively wanted to jerk away from but he took it mechanically, slipped it into his waistband. He waited until the steps faded, and then he turned around.

The mysterious seller was gone. Race stared into the emptying street and if he was shaking it was only because the pistol was like ice against his hip. He was sure, he was sure that now he'd never be afraid again. 

-

Spot was messing with Race in an alley - not in THAT way but perhaps heading in that direction, the taller boy's hands all over him with an eagerness that took Spot's breath away. The only way to describe the way Race kissed him was greedy - not that he minded. It was hard not be possessive of what you had when you had so little, and Spot found he had the same vice where Race was involved.

It was maybe the riskiest place they'd kissed, so close to the outside world that Spot could hear muffled voices, but he felt almost drunk with exultation. Racetrack was too close to him to care about anything else - until the voices started to get closer.

Race and him froze at the same time, rabbits with one foot in a trap. Race shoved him away at the same time Spot turned to look at the source of the noise, so by the time the bulls came through they were just two newsies shooting the breeze after work, albeit very red ones. The police officers kept walking, tapping their bats against the wall threateningly, but left them be. Spot could see Race's narrow chest heaving. 

When they were alone again, neither of them moved to get closer. Spot could see the headline from a month ago - Queer Pride Protesters Thrown In Hudson - stamped over Race's face in an invisible warning, and he was sure Race could see it in his own. 

"Ah, jeez, Racer," Spot said cautiously, "s'allright -"

"We can't do nothing." Race looked shaken; it was their closest call ever. "If they's find out, we ain't worth a funeral. Boys'll never know."

Spot was crushing him in a hug before Race had got the last word out. "I love you." he said firmly, as if that'd mitigate everything (he wished it could). "That'll never happen."

Race's face was frightening. "I love you too," he said, and Spot didn't know but he was already miles away. 

-

Racetrack's old man had had a shotgun, a rusty old thing that he liked to wave around and shoot at walls with when he was drunk, which was most of the time. Race had learned to take the bullets out before his father came home; better to have him raging about losing those than firing around Race and his ma. Long after he'd left that house, Race had hated guns. The ancient musket hanging in Wiesel's office was enough to make him swallow.

But the older he got the harder it was to feel like a man. He was expected to do an adult's job, to support himself and the younger newsies, but still got treated like a child by everyone but other children. Racetrack felt like his clothes were always too baggy and he was always too thin and his face was too hard, too weathered to be strong like he wanted. Spot seemed to do it so effortlessly, a natural leader - Race felt like he'd have to fight twice as hard to be respected half as much.

Maybe a gun would give him that sense of importance, he thought in bed at night as he grew up. They still scared him - not that he'd ever admit it - but his father certainly seemed to think he was all that with a shotgun in his hand. Whether that was the pistol or the alcohol was anyone's guess, but Jackie would kill him if he came back to lodging drunk. A shotgun, funnily enough, was a better kept secret.

But Racetrack had always shoved the idea away, tried to remember the blind rage of his old man and remind himself he wanted to be nothing like him. He managed to keep the temptation at bay for years, up until he and Spot started stepping out together. Being homosexual wasn't exactly safe, and seeing all the terrible things said in the news made Race feel even weaker with the lack of defense he could put up. Spot, his beloved Spot, seemed better equipped to handle this hurdle on top of their dreaded adolescence; now this was a man. Racetrack could never be like that.

Not without a gun.

The close call with the bulls was the last straw. The way they had looked at the two of them, so dismissive and scornful, hadn't seemed to bother Spot, but it made Race burn. Later that day he'd gone to Sheepshead and asked around - discreetly, of course - on the subject of procuring a firearm. It was disturbingly easy.

When he got back to the lodging house on that drizzling night after the exchange, the first thing Race did was check if the pistol was loaded - it was, with just one bullet. He could buy more. It was more about the cold weight of it on his hand in the dark, the other boys snoring around him, knowing that he could defend them all. It wasn't quite what Race had hoped, but it was better than nothing.

He slept less than he usually did with the gun under his pillow. He didn't sleep at all. 

-

Days passed and Racetrack was starting to grow accustomed to his new accessory. He lagged behind the other boys dressing so he could put the pistol in his pocket unnoticed, and then went about his day as usual, just like before. He just was a bit more the man now, forcing himself to stand taller now knowing he had the weapon, and feeling less like a child and more like a - well, he didn't know.

He got away with it for almost two weeks before he was found out. Spot was pressed against the length of the body when suddenly he stiffened, jerking away from Race like he'd been burned.

"Well, I know you ain't that happy to see me," he said slowly, eyes narrow, "so what's that, Racer?"

The shotgun had slipped around his pocket and was against his thigh, easily felt. Race felt himself go red up to his ears. "Nothing."

Spot's hand dug into his pocket, then shot out as soon as Race felt him touch the pistol. "Are you goddamn insane?" Spot half-shouted, just as red as Race. "You got a death wish?"

"It's none of of your business." Race snarled back. He didn't know why he was embarrassed - it was his gun, t was his decision and his status, but Spot looked so bitterly disappointed and he couldn't stand it. 

"What, you think you's in the big time?" Spot laughed sourly. He was two feet away like he couldn't stand to be anywhere near it, but then he took a step and pulled it from Race's pocket before he could protest. He held it like something poisonous.

"Jesus, Racer. This make you feel strong or something?"

"Give it back." Race had never hated someone he loved so much - mostly because of the shame still boiling in his stomach. "Ain't got nothing to do with you."

"Having a gun don't make you a man." Spot was looking at him with such tenderness suddenly that Race want to die. "Bein' a man means you decide what makes you one. Don't matter what anyone else says."

Race could feel his eyes stinging. He bolted forward, trying to grab it back, and Spot yanked and -

The bullet burst free like something wild and unprompted, striking the street with a terrifying bang. Both of them flinched hard, ears ringing, as around the corner footsteps started to come running. Race allowed himself a single scream, and then Spot grabbed Race's hand and they ran away from the disaster he'd created.

-

Sitting on the edge of the Brooklyn bridge, legs hanging into the abyss, never failed to make Race calm. Spot was so close that their shoulders were pressed tight. Thick as thieves had never been so literal.

Race turned the gun over in his hands, so lifeless without ammunition, and turned to meet Spot's eyes. "You ain't need that," his boyfriend reiterated softly. "You ain't never need it."

It was difficult to be between man and boy, but Race would stay a child forever before he turned into his old man, unable to control his ambition for power. Without a second's thought he drew back his arm and threw the shotgun in an arc into the wide grey river, watching it disappear with a splash.

He felt himself smile, relieved and unhappy. Spot took his arm and helped him stand, a solid presence in the middle of a mess, and together they went home.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment if you enjoyed! thanks for reading!


End file.
